Daisy-chained network configurations can reduce cost and weight associated to wirings. This can be especially important in aerospace applications, where reducing aircraft weight can be a design goal. Each device that is daisy-chain connected to a network has at least two network connecting ports, one for communicating with upstream daisy-chain connected devices, and one for communicating with downstream daisy-chain connected devices.
If one daisy-chain connected device sends a communication to another daisy-chain connected device, any devices connected between receive the communication on one of its network connecting ports and then retransmit the communication on the other of its network connecting ports. Should such an intervening device lose its ability to relay such a communication, the communication would fail.
Some aircraft use daisy-chain networks to connect Wireless Remote Data Concentrators (WRDCs). WRDCs are wireless communications nodes that can be daisy-chained to a wired network, such as an Ethernet network. Loss of function of one WRDC could render the remaining WRDCs along the daisy-chain incapable of communicating. For example, failures of WRDCs positioned upstream in the daisy-chain could render all downstream devices unable to communicate with upstream devices or systems. A method is needed to selectively bypass a WRDC on a daisy-chain configured network to permit the remainder of WRDCs to continue to be able to communicate.